This year spring has tried to come with its warmth and breeze and new growth spreading across the earth. But winter just can’t seem to let go, and the harsh cold keeps poking its head out and breathing its frost across our days. And we can’t pack up our clothes yet and move on to another season.

For the longest time I believed firmly that she would come home in April.

And then I released that hope into the winter wind and knew April would be when we held her and whispered, “We’re going to be your mommy and daddy” and left her behind with that promise.

But instead April became the month of hope deferred, of dreams not met, and of a thousand tears and a million prayers.And with my heart broken into a thousand pieces, I found myself thinking and caught myself saying, “All that is left to do is pray.”

And HE who has never stopped listening, never stopped singing comfort over me, never stopped speaking softly in my ear … He didn’t whisper this time.

His conviction stung deep.

“Prayer has never been all that is left to do.”

Prayer was the beginning more than two years ago when He asked, “Have you forgotten the adoption promise?” And when I responded, “But when, and how, and where,” He whispered in Ben’s ear, “Now”. And we asked a hundred times and a hundred ways, and the answers sometimes came slowly and sometimes came fast and sometimes came all at once. His answers formed our passion and presented our feet with the trail to tread. And if prayers made concrete, we would have paved a path to Africa and back a hundred times already.

But most of the time His answer was the long way.Prayer was the middle of the journey too. And as the days dragged on and became two years of leaves turning, falling, and growing back again, the saints joined with us in our weariness and carried us, and prayer was never last. It was never the only thing they could do or the last thing they could do, but it was always the greatest thing they could do on our behalf. And her name rose up to the heavens like a chorus from His people: Aida.

And He said: “My son heaved on the cross and sucked in His last breath, and in His sacrifice gave you a gift of freely communicating with Me. And don’t dismiss His payment by dismissing this part of the gift. Talk to Me. Whisper to Me. Sing to Me. Shout to Me. Simply say My name. But don’t mistake prayer as a last resort."

There is power in prayer.Prayer is for when disappointment squeezes your heart tight, when grief makes you forget how to breathe, when you are spitting fire, when you have great news, and when you have bad news. It’s for when there is no news at all. It’s for when you’re weary, or when you’re too confused to string together a sentence, or when you’re in the endless wait. It’s for when you don’t want to pray, and it’s for when you can only whisper a word or simply sit and listen to HIS. It’s for when you’re filled with joy and sing out the celestial shout, and it’s for when you’re entangled in the muck and can’t unwrap yourself. It’s for whispering over someone all suffocated by fear or for when you’re the one who’s suffocating.It’s for when winter comes early and stays late.

It was for then, and it is for now, and it will be for tomorrow.

So all four of us keep whispering His name and her name, the repetition that has become the quiet rhythm in our home and in our hearts as the season’s have passed.And it seems again that His answer is the long way.

I’ve used up my fair share of grace over this winter. I’ve wrapped it around me like a warm blanket, thanking God for its abundance, asking for forgiveness for how much I need it, praising Him for giving it so freely, knowing I will need it again tomorrow. The last five weeks haven’t gone like we wanted them to … how I wanted them to. A steady stream of disheartening news and estimated travel dates passed by, and I’ve been left broken and confused … trying to act normal. Like a part of my heart isn’t living in Africa, growing up in front of me through pictures and updates, going to bed every night without a Mommy and Daddy. And there is also the ever increasing awareness that this seemingly impossible wait is going to be nothing compared to the wait after we meet her and leave her there and wait to be able to return to get her. The days have gone by slowly like a clock ticking away moments lost with her and after weeks of overwhelming sadness; I found myself numb. And then the court date we had been waiting for came. But I didn’t react the way I was suppose to: I didn’t jump and squeal, I didn’t post it on Facebook, I didn’t want to write a blog, I didn’t call or text all my friends. In fact, I talked to as few people as possible. Because I felt stuck feeling an emotion I wasn’t supposed to feel. Not the emotion people would want to see or hear from me. And the emotion hit me with such overwhelming force (a storm that had been brewing for weeks … or maybe it was more than two years in the making) that I didn’t know what to do with it; I couldn’t even identify it at first. I stomped my feet and pounded my fist on the bathroom counter. I lay on my bed sobbing and begging God to give us a just a few weeks earlier, a few days earlier. Anything sooner. Not April 1. We had lost another month. I felt cheated. I realized IT was anger. I was furious. What happened to the end of January, then to February — and why oh why did March get skipped over completely? And the questions keep pouring out of me. Between my tears and bursts of anger, I’ve spent the last few days pleading for gratitude and for peace and a changed perspective. I wish I could say it was fast in coming; it’s not. But I press on reciting the Truths I know, rehearsing my thankfulness even when I don’t feel like it, expressing my feelings to a Savior that restores me through His understanding, feeling the warm blanket of His grace … knowing that healing and growth take time. The roots are there already. But they need both the sunshine and the rain to grow up out of the dirt. Beautiful things sprout up in the spring. And that’s when we’ll meet Aida.

While you were sleeping last night, I was praying. It was daytime here, and while I folded laundry, your name was on my lips. At lunchtime, the four of us gathered around the table and lifted you up. In the evening when your daddy was gone, I lay on the bed cuddled with Libby and Tucker, and they both prayed for you. And after they were asleep, I washed dishes and responded to messages, and sewed, and worked on a Bible study and I simply called out “Lord, Lord” because I had run out of words and tears. Or I thought I had. But then I sat at our table again and wrote in my journal to Him the hardest words … the words I had offered before. “We want Aida to be ours… so badly. But even though it’s hard … more than that, we want what’s best for her, we want Your plan. And if that means her staying in the place where she was born… then let it be done Lord. “ And while I was getting ready for bed, I pictured your relatives getting ready for the day. Making the long trip to court. And I prayed for our Provider’s supernatural peace and wisdom and comfort to overcome them. To let them know what is best. I fell asleep, knowing that while we were sleeping, people were going to court and making a decision that would alter the rest of two families’ lives. And while we were sleeping, they were given an unimaginable choice (that no one should ever have to make) for the third and final time. And while we were sleeping, they chose to love you by letting you go. And while we were sleeping, you became one step closer to becoming ours.

I wrapped a gift for you today. We took your big brother and big sister topick it out. I slid it under my bed for the future.

Today is your first birthday (or what we currently have as your birthday butthat’s another story). There are no candles to blow out and no cake for you toeat. The birthday banner is still tucked in its drawer.

I am mourning this birthday without you -- your very first one. I am mourning that there will be no first birthday pictures, no off-key birthday song, and no rocking you to sleep tonight while I think about the past year. I am mourning that you are in a transition home and that I don't know if there is any celebration for you today.

I am celebrating for the promise of future birthdays when you will be here to blow out candles and open gifts and to run around laughing and celebrating with your siblings. I don’t take the gift of hope for a future lightly; there are mommies and daddies who don’t have it.

I am mourning all that I have missed already, all the big milestones and all the simple ordinary moments that will have made you into the one-year-old we will bring home. I am sad because I will be able to tell your big brother and sister about the first time they laughed and rolled over, but I won’t be able to tell you about when you did those things.

I am celebrating the moments I won’t miss and the memories we will make together and the years to come: holidays, first bicycle rides, late-night conversations, proms, laughter, tears, pillow fights, and college applications.

I am mourning all that you have lost and all the hardships that you have come through in the short little span of your life. I am mourning because our gain came from someone else’s loss, and that we live in a world where such things as poverty and hunger and grief exist.

I am celebrating that God in His wisdom can make something beautiful out of tragedy and that through it I will get to be your mother, I will be the one you call Mom and the one who gets to kiss your boo-boos and argue with you over eating vegetables and tuck you in at night and wipe your tears when you are sad and laugh with you when you are happy.

I am mourning for you the loss of your background and the knowledge of where you came from -- the loss of living in the country where you were born and having the same color skin as your family, the loss of knowing how to fill out the form at the doctor’s office that asks for your family medical history, the loss of your culture, the loss of hearing about how you have your grandma’s eyes and your dad’s chin, and the story about the moment your mom first felt you kicking in her belly. The loss of knowing your biological family in an intimate way.

I am celebrating the future Aida I will know and celebrating because while your past is a part of you, it is not all of you. Celebrating that we get to walk beside you when you grieve all that you lost and that we will be here to help you sort through all the little pieces that remain and try to make sense of it all. I am celebrating because you may not look like the father you are gaining but you might share his laugh or pick up his mannerisms. You will get to wrestle with him and hear his prayers for you and sit in his lap and one day know how much he longed for his second daughter to come home. And I am celebrating because you will gain an amazing brother and an amazing sister who pray for you every day, talk about you all the time, and keep your photo by their bed. Get ready, sweetie, I’m not sure they will be able to contain their excitement when you finally come home.

I am mourning for all the other orphans you leave behind: for the ones who will not have a home and family and who will spend their days in an orphanage or in foster care and will spend their adult years trying not to become what the statistics say they will.

I am celebrating that you will have a home and a family and you will not live in poverty or in a transition home or an orphanage all of your childhood; I am celebrating that you are one less orphan out of the 5 million reported orphans in your country.

I am mourning because I know that our first interaction will not be of you running to me and hugging me and thanking me for coming to get you, but it will involve distress in your eyes and fear in your heart because we will smell weird and talk weird and look weird and threaten the only world you know. And I mourn because I know the moment we’ve been working for and wanting so badly -- getting to take you home -- will be one of the most difficult moments, because our baby won’t want to come home with us.

I am celebrating because we will work through it and it will be hard and challenging and exhausting but worth it. Oh, so worth it.

I am mourning because this year I didn’t hang an ornament on our tree that said “baby’s first Christmas,” and because this year I opened your gifts, and you spent Christmas day in a transition home millions of miles away from us.

I am celebrating because next year we will know what size you wear and what toy might make you laugh, and we will add your stocking to the others, and you will actually be in your chair at our table as we walk through advent each day and we will rejoice together over what the season celebrates.

I am mourning because just a few weeks ago, I read about your favorite foods and the number of your teeth on a form.

I am celebrating that soon I will know what to cook you for dinner and that I’ll be able to count your teeth for myself.

I am mourning because there are lots of people where you come from who have never heard the Good News and will never find freedom and peace and joy in knowing Him.

I am celebrating because we get to share the gospel with you, we get to tell you about Jesus and whisper His promises in your ear and pray for His name to be written across your heart.

I am crying for you today my darling: tears of sorrow and tears of joy. And I remind myself, “Weeping may last for the night but joy comes in the morning.”

Someday someone might try to tell you that you are “lucky” that we rescued you and changed your life. But I hope you know the truth we already know … HE rescued us, HE pulled us up out of the pits and adopted us. And we are just two flawed people clumsily trying to live out the grace we have been given, doing what parents do and loving our child,our daughter, our gift. We are “lucky”. We are changed already … because of you.

I am (we are) overjoyed that we have an official referral… a little girl waiting for us in Africa. But I wasn’t prepared for the other emotions that would come with that news. Mainly, a constant companion of sadness I just can’t shake. In the quiet calm of the evenings, I tuck my two oldest in and listen to the sweet sound of them singing and I push back tears because someone else is tucking my youngest in (“please, Lord, let there be someone tucking her in”). I watch Tucker and Libby running circles around the living room and wonder if we will miss her first steps. We celebrate Tucker’s birthday and I dread the day her 1st birthday will come and go without her here to sing to. I fix them their favorite sandwiches and wonder if someone knows what her favorite foods are. The days, the weeks have passed and I think about the moments we haven’t had with her, the milestones we are missing, fearing that each day is another day she grows farther apart from us, another day that her transition to trust and love us becomes harder. Our daughter is living a continent away under other people’s care. Just two months ago, I thought we had several years to go and that seemed so long. Now, “6-8” months feels unbearable.

But I have a gift. A gift I don’t take for granted because some mothers don’t have it.

The gift of hope … hope for a future with her and so I cling to it.

Hope for nights when she is included in the bedtime story, when I get to rock her, and hold her, and tuck her in. Hope for birthdays with candles and singing, hope for three kids chasing each other around the house, and the laughter of all of them filling our home. I have hope for getting to add her picture to the wall of photos of our kids and the first time I struggle to fix her hair. I have hope for one more little person pulling at my legs and testing my patience while I try to cook dinner, another set of fingerprint smudges on the walls, and for five chairs to be occupied at our table.

I have hope for an extra coat hanging by our door and another pair of shoes on the shoe rack.

And He is surrounding me with sounds of hope … constant reminders He faithfully gives that help me keep going. I hear it with the clinking of coins in a jar, the one Tucker started just to help bring his sister home. I hear it in the ting of the metal when the mailman drops yet another encouraging note or generous donation in our mailbox. I hear it in the whir of the sewing machine, as I, slightly exhausted, turn it on each evening after the kids are in bed, and I remember that with each little stitch across the fabric we are one little step closer to bringing her home. I hear it in Tucker’s voice when he asks one more time if he can see the pictures of his little sister and when every day he wants to pray for her. I hear it when Libby points to her sister’s picture and tries to say her name. I hear it in the sweet noises of twin baby boys recently brought home by friends who have waited so patiently for them. I hear it in the patter of dancing feet and little singing voices-when my kids beg to listen to the “adoption song” one more time and make yet another person who visits our house listen to it too. I hear it in laughter and conversation and paintbrushes swishing in water at each painting party we have to raise money. I hear it in offers of prayer and offers of help and the simple question “how is the adoption going?” — all of which tell me people care.

I hear it in His Word, and I hear it in His voice as He gently leads me (us) through another phase of the process. He has given us hope. He has given us peace. He has given far more abundantly than we ever asked or imagined.

And we named her Aida (we’re pronouncing it A-duh) which means “princess” in her native country.

We named her Aida because it also means gift.

We just recently updated our prayer requests page and our fundraising pages. We hope you will read them and continue with us in praying Aida home.